New Ontario Plant to Become Leader in Vinyl Production

With the resurgence of vinyl records in recent years, a giant new record production plant is set to open next month in Burlington, Ontario.

The Precision Record Pressing plant is a joint venture between Canadian music distributor Isotope Music Inc. and Czech vinyl manufacturer GZ. The partnership came about when vice-president Gerry McGhee had trouble buying record pressing machines (McGhee you may remember as the lead singer of the 80s glam metal band Brighton Rock). This led to the deal with GZ–one of the biggest vinyl companies in Europe.

The Burlington plant is projected in its first year to produce four million units, with expanded capacity increasing to 11 million by phase two. That production level would make the record plant the second largest in North America and employ 200 people.

According to Nielsen Music, record sales in Canada rose 30 percent to over 517,000 units in 2015. U.S. vinyl sales hit 12 million last year, which was a new record and marked the 10th straight year of growth in record sales.